Playable Characters in Digital Games: Aesthetics and Gender Identity in Digital Game Player's Preferences.

Characters are the interface throughout most of the players’ experience many digital games. In digital games, the Playable Character faces a problem that generates conflict lived by the player who is willing to spend time and energy to experience a breach of the character's life as if it were their own. The present research paper aims to describe some aesthetical features of the favorite playable characters of a group of players. A survey was conducted to assess the favorite playable character of the players, collecting 301 valid responses (236 from male players, 55 from female players, and 10 from non-binary players) from 48 countries, nominating 147 different playable characters, pointed as their favorite ones. The characters enumerated were categorized regarding the following dimensions of playable character: visualization or perspective (first person or third person); type of figure (human or non-human); character gender identity (male, female, or non-binary); and character type of face (babyface or mature male face). The results show that players tend to have more meaningful gaming experiences with fictional characters with the body presented on the screen (third-person view). Those bodies tend to be human and male, with a bias for female babyface features and mature male faces in the most cited favorite playable characters.